That's less than two hours of exercise weekly. Thirty or sixty minutes of mild cardio once a week is optional, but it's also a good idea.

There are page links to our free food and exercise plans and programs awaiting you near the bottom of this page. First, let's learn more.

Our tried and tested methods are extremely effective at promoting weight loss that lasts. If you are not already using them, what’s the easiest way to begin using them? On this website, we provide you with all the free programs and information that you will need. If you have not read the other pages on metabolism for weight loss, please do so. (Their links are also awaiting you near the bottom of this page.)

The environment for weight loss

Realize the following important fact: those of us who live in developed countries today do not live in an environment that helps us to boost our metabolism and achieve lasting weight loss. Everything seems to conspire against us, which is why at least two-thirds of us are too fat.

Therefore, it is wise to improve your environment. Improving your personal environment will make a critical difference in improving your odds of achieving lasting weight loss.

How?

It’s simple: if you are able to increase your associations with people who have the right habits and decrease your associations with people who don’t.

Here are some specific examples of what we recommend.

A. People who eat well and exercise well keep educating themselves about flourishing physically.

They understand, for example, that eating too many carbohydrates (and any refined [processed] carbohydrates) causes a constellation of physical and emotional problems, because, when digested they all become sugar. Mother Nature did not design your body to run primarily on sugar.

Many read frequently about nutrition and exercise.

Because they deliberately replace bad ideas about slow metabolism and weight gain with good ones, they predispose themselves to trying those good ideas.

Work against a slow metabolism and weight gain

If you regularly expose yourself to ideas for improving life, won't you eventually try some? Won't some actually work?

Our social environment reinforces a poor relationship between metabolism and weight gain.

However, some people don’t give in to all that temptation. Some people don’t eat impulsively. Some people plan all their meals carefully. Some people take the trouble to eat naturally. Associate with those kinds of people.

On this free website we provide all the information that will enable you to do the same. If necessary, improve your reading habits and associations. If you do, you won’t feel so overwhelmed.

Foods effect a slow metabolism and weight gain

Focus on eliminating refined processed carbohydrates most days of the week.

If you are unsure what refined processed carbohydrates are, you will find a link to a list of them awaiting you near the bottom of this page.

In the last 200 years, according to nutritionist Dr. Ann Louise Gittleman, sugar consumption has risen more than 1500%! Our bodies haven’t had time to adapt, and this nutrient-poor load of calories is causing very serious physical and emotional problems.

What’s the most important cause of silent inflammation? “The hormone insulin is at the top of the list. What releases insulin? Sugar. Surges of sugar trigger surges of insulin” [from Connie Bennett and Stephen T. Sinatra, Sugar Shock!, p. 22].

It seems, then, that the most important step you could take to increase your chances of being healthier would be to eliminate all sugars and other refined carbohydrates from your diet most days of the week.

That may also be the single most important step you could take to achieve lasting weight loss.

It isn’t easy, but you can do it.

If you are a sugar addict, sugar addiction is an addiction you can break. It’s easier to break it if you hang around people who are not addicts, too. To reverse metabolism and weight gain, switch your body from burning sugar to burning fat. Restricting carb intake most days of the week will do that.

D. Give yourself a weekly break. Have a cheat day once a week.

On cheat day, eat one meal in which your consume (high glycemic index) carbohydrates and fats together as well as plenty of calories and, as always, protein.

Why?

Especially if you also restrict calories, after about six days of restricting carbohydrates the level of the hormone leptin in your body will decrease to about half its normal level.

This signals to your body that you are starving to death and, in response, your metabolic rate will slow and so will fat burning.

The way to combat this and keep fat burning is to have a cheat day.

However, even on cheat day, please don't keep eating until you feel stuffed!

Always stop eating as soon as hunger disappears.

With respect to slow metabolism and weight gain, leptin and insulin are the key hormones. They rise and fall together. So, if you are diabetic, having an insulin spike (along with a leptin spike) is dangerous, so, as always, consult with your personal physician before making significant changes to either your dietary or exercise habits. Adding a cheat day is a significant change.

E. Never skip a meal. Eat a meal every 3 to 5 waking hours and ensure that it is centered around a natural source of protein.

This will prevent hunger and minimize food cravings. Natural sources of protein come with plenty of good fats. If, as we recommend, on most days you are keeping your grams of carbs to 25 or fewer, there's no need for you to worry about consuming plenty of fats from natural sources; they won't make you fat.

F. Ensure that you are well-hydrated. Never drink less than 2 quarts of water daily. Drink at least 3 or 4 on days that you exercise hard or do sustained physical labor. This will help your body process the protein and help to minimize hunger.

G. Even if you hate exercise, can you talk yourself into going for a brisk walk for 30 to 60 minutes several times a week? Doing that will burn fat during the walk and really make a difference over time.

If you enjoy exercise or are willing to do it, skip the mild fitness exercise (except for once a week if you like) and instead do a whole body strength training workout for 30 or 40 minutes twice weekly and 2 (or, better, 3) brief sessions of intense fitness exercise such as GXP, HIIT, or PACE. This totals less than 2 hours of exercise weekly. The really good news is that it will burn fat for up to 40 hours after each exercise session! Therefore, this works against a slow metabolism and weight gain.

Why?

Both strength training and intense fitness exercise will increase your lean muscle, which is many times more active metabolically than fat. If you will do them regularly, you'll switch from weight gain to weight loss. For every 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of weight you lose, you'll be losing 1 pound of fat.

H. Get plenty of sleep. If you are frequently walking around tired, one response your body will have is to gain fat.

I. Make it as easy on yourself as possible to follow tips A through H by using the psychological and spiritual aids here on our website. They really can make the difference.

This same method (A - I) works for all the natural, effective ways of increasing your metabolic rate.

Make it happen!

Pages to banish slow metabolism and weight gain

To further your understanding about slow metabolism and weight gain, see the following pages of our website:

1. Ways to Increase Metabolism,

2. Fat Burning Foods,

3. List of Refined Processed Carbohydrates,

4. Strength and Weight Training.

You will find the direct links to all those pages on our Sitemap/Index, which is listed at the bottom of the menu/navigation buttons.

Alternatively, for further help with slow metabolism and weight gain, use the link at the very bottom of this page to visit the 'Speed Up Metabolism' page, which is the first page in this section of our website.

Books for slow metabolism and weight gain

The books are available at some good bookstores, especially Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, usually in Kindle and paperback form, sometimes as hardbacks. If you found the metabolism and weight gain page informative, these books are excellent further reading.

The Eades's Protein Power

Bennett & Sinatra's Sugar Shock!

Wily & Formby's Lights Out

Sears's Dr. Sears' High Speed Fat Loss in 7 Easy Steps

On most pages of our website, we aim to recommend the very best books available according to the topic of each page. We endeavor to make the best suggestions based on experience and our many years of work and research in the fields of health and fitness. We suggest only books that we have read and can wholly commend.